Friday, January 1, 2016

As I write this, I have to say too much bad has happened as well. The Islamists are on a war path and they are being protected by the liberal media who yell racist bigot and Islamaphobe to anyone who asks any questions or compalins but leave all that be I wanna talk about all the things that I love that have happened in the world over the last 12 months and there are a lot. Disclaimer I might bleed into earlier years since I have not blogged for a while.

Tesla motors- car technology is moving forward again. We have basically had petroleum internal combustion vehicles my whole life now these cars have come along that basically consist of is electrical drive train and a battery for propulsion. It drives differently were you just have to use one pedal most of the time and it has a giant iPad-like screen to control everything. On top of all this Tesla keeps coming out with a new amazing announcement every few months.

SpaceX- Only a few days ago SpaceX landed the first reusable rocket that sent a payload to the upper atmosphere and Blue origin Jeff Bezos's company landed a less powerful version for tourists as well. As a space/scifi nut I love this.

Gigafactory- Another one of the things Mr. Elon Musk is working on. When its ready we will have the cheaper model 3 and Mr. Musk says that battery storage technology can be expected to improve at 10% per year so within the next 10 years we can expect battery capacities to go up by an extra 170%. The type of devices that will allow is very exciting to imagine.

Virtual Reality- To be fair I have not tried this yet, but I am very much looking forward to having virtual reality experiences with things like space games, horror games and maybe sitting in on amazing presentations by amazing people like Neil Degrasse Tyson and maybe a clever animator or programmer can make the lectures of Carl Sagans available for us to experience in VR.

Lessening involvement in the middle east by the west- It does not seem like it right now because of Syria, but the west did not send in troops into the middle east we are just giving air support and that is what it has to be the more we are involved there the more money and lives we will waste and the more the terrorists will use the west as an excuse when they do horrible things.

Nuclear deal with Iran- With all the checks and balances put in place for this deal it is not likely Iran will be building any more nuclear weapons. The people of Iran will also now be able the advancements the world has achieved which it could not under sanctions.

Strengthening world economy- Millions of people are getting pulled out of poverty in China and India and that is only good for the world more well-off people will be strengthening the world economy and inventing amazing breakthroughs in science and create new businesses that will improve all lives.

Fracking means we will never have to rely on the middle east for oil again. I don't know if the oil-rich states are funding terrorism, but regardless having more ways to get our oil will make us more secure. Aside from terrorism there is story after story of how badly Filo and Indian workers get treated in Saudi Arabia and thanks to the falling oil prices they have just posted a huge deficit. It will be interesting to see what happens to what happens to the worlds oil-rich nations.

Nuclear Energy- I am a fan of nuclear reactors as I am writing this there are 66 nuclear reactors around the world under construction. The worlds first fast reactor has been connected to the grid. There have been several strides made with different fusion concepts. Lockhead martin has even said they have a fusion reactor design that will fit on the back of a truck. India is now allowed to import uranium and they may be agreeing purchase six AP1000 reactors from Westinghouse within the next year and speaking of AP1000 reactors the first AP1000 should come online with the next few weeks.

Mobile phone technology improvements, Phones improve every year and I am looking forward to what functionality phones will have in the future. My gold and glass Samsung galaxy s6 which I got a really low price today is my smart phone that acts like a universal remote, takes 13mp pictures from a camera app that opens just by clicking the home button twice. It uploads image online within seconds after I take the picture and it can be a virtual reality device if I want to watch any TV shows or movies in movie theater.

Manoj Bhargava- I only discovered this person a few weeks ago and I have made him my new sidekick to Bill Gates as one of the people I am most inspired by. The EZY Mart near my work stocks his 5 hour energy drink and I love it every time I need a pick me up that is the energy drink I go for and I love the fact that it has made this person a billionaire. I am looking forward to seeing his energy bike, rain maker and renew machine helping billions of people around the world. Using graphene ropes to get energy from a few miles underneath the ground, I am not feeling that concept as highly as the other three because I am cautious of anything that promises anything because of graphene, but I hope it works.

Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Patreon- I am never going to be a billionaire like Manoj Bhargave and though I have plenty of ideas of inventions that can make the world a better place I am not an engineer or inventor so I have no hope of making the world a better place however crowd-sourcing sites allow me to do so. I support creators through patreon, I give small and large amounts of money on Indiegogo and Kickstarter to help great projects and I have provided encouragement and marketing help to creators that are doing amazing things.

We will remove animal cruelty in the future- Hampton creek has created amazing products that no longer require the use of eggs and is working on many more, Muufri is working on creating milk without cows it is not ready yet but, I am hoping we see it in 2016, the $250 000 lab-grown beef patty that Sergei Brim funded in 2014 has come down in price to 13 dollars a patty. Beyond meat has created plant substitutes for chicken and beef that taste just like the real stuff, they even created the beast burger which tastes like meat but is way better nutritionally than any other meat you can consume. Impossible foods has discovered heme which makes red meats taste red meaty and they will soon be adding that to the plant based foods they create that will taste like red meats. Lessening animal cruelty is not the only advantage of these innovations. they consume less energy, less water, use less transportation, are cleaner, use no antibiotics and are just healthier then animal based foods.

Soylent/Joylent- Thank you Mr. Reinhart for coming up with the idea of Soylent a powder that 100% of all human food needs in a bag that you can just mix like a protein shake and drink it without the need for cooking cleaning or shopping because you just order this stuff very cheaply online ... it just sucks that you don't send it to Australia, but Joylent from Europe does. $6 per meal is how much I pay for a quick healthy Joylent meal and I love it.

Indoor vertical farming- this is expanding fast around the world, currently they are only growing small leafy plants indoors in temperature, humidity and light controlled buildings with no pesticides, 90% less water usage, less fertilizer and less transportation because these facilities can be set up close to where the food is consumed. I am hoping in 2016 indoor vertical farming can be used for larger plants as well.

Kevin Folta - Greens anywhere are religiously against GMOs and for no reason, but they are so hysterically against GMOs that they are able to convince people who do not understand that genetic modification is a natural and random part of evolution. Kevin Folta is someone I became aware of this year who came showed up to calmly explain the plane advantage of modifying organisms intelligently. As I write this Kevin stopped talking publicly because of the amount of venom he received from Greenies my hope is that he starts speaking publicly again in 2016.

Kmart- This shop now sells things at prices 80% lower than what I was paying for things just five years ago. Thank you China for allowing this to be possible and thank you for the innovative CEOs at Kmart for going with the high volume low-cost model.

Amazing movies- there were plenty of movies that were disappointing this year like Star Wars and Avengers 2, but there were plenty that were just amazing like Mad Max, Kingsman and the Martian.

Amazing Television - There are some good shows that I enjoy watching like The Flash, Arrow, Comedians in cars getting coffee and Limitless. Those shows aside there were a few heavy hitters like Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Orphan Black and Better Call Saul. This year I also watch an old show "Battlestar Galactica" that show was simply amazing and I have to watch it again some time.

Gamergate- I am not a big gamer, but I do enjoy some gaming from time to time so when a bunch of game review sites I trusted seemed to be giving positive reviews to game companies and people that were giving them extras I was not pleased about it because I have spent money and time on games and movies that I have not enjoyed because of online reviews. What annoyed me further was the way a bunch of sites that I used to enjoy like Vice, GameSpot, and Kotaku came together and instead of apologising for how they were acting and telling us what they going to do to fix it, they started calling gamers basement dwelling men that hate women. They were going strong for a while because they had the media on their side, but slowly the men and women of gamergate destroyed these websites, editor's and so-called journalists.

Awesome Games- There were plenty of disappointments like the incomplete Metal Gear Solid, Halo 5s disappointing story, but there were a few amazing games like the Witcher, Tomb Raider 2 and the remake of Gears Of War.

Windows 10- this is an amazing piece of software that is free. Unfortunately, when I updated my laptop the screen does not size properly when I HDMI my laptop screen to the TV I use hopefully that is fixed in 2016 and I can upgrade to Win 10.

Netflix- The shows it produces are awesome and the service is awesome.

Space Achievements- Water and methane found on Mars, millions of earth like planets are predicted to be in the milky way, New Horizons arrived and beamed back amazing images and now is heading towards another deep space object, we landed on an asteroid, India sent a probe to mars, Plutonium 238 is being produced again so new deep space probes are possible to send out again.

I am sure I missed a few things but this year had a few amazing things I just loved.